Payback
by Roselyne
Summary: Calling for help has never been Heath Slater's style. He'd rather use his fists to get out of ugly situations. But sometimes, in pitch black, you need to ally with your worst enemies...


**Author's Note:** I **NEVER** planned on writing this. This fic has been created as a **challenge** with Yoda-Ben and Arkel after a discussion on an wrestling article I recently wrote on CAQ. Each of us is going to write a different story, with different style and point of view about a particular recent WWE event. Their version might be a BIT different. Check them too :)

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**"PAYBACK"**

**Chapter 1 – Pitch Black**

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It was a sound that gradually brought Heath back to his senses. First it had been like a slight white noise. Then he thought about someone banging very quickly on a distant door at the end of a long corridor echoing the sound. He felt no worries. Not yet.

Then, the banging sound became deafening as a new sensation hit him. He was cold. Very cold. He could barely feel his body, as if he was sleeping in an incredibly soft bed. But so cold. Someone had probably left a window opened. He frowned. Where was he? But as soon as this thought took shape, he tried to relax as he felt a migraine appearing on his forehead, and extending its pseudopods to the back of his neck. He slightly leant his head backwards in that strangely soft pillow, feeling a feather-like blanket starting to cover his chin. Yet, he was still feeling the cold.

The blanket slowly moved over his face, covering his cheeks, then his eyes, then his forehead, not covering his nose, but... entering it! He frowned again, increasing the intensity of his headache as the "blanket" was reaching the back of his throat and softly moving into his trachea. He opened his eyes but saw absolutely nothing. He opened his mouth, trying to gasp for air, but it only led more water inside his lungs. Panic seized him and he struggled, his arms and legs sprang up from the water, searching for anything to grab. His hands found on his left side some edge of whatever container he was in and he frantically pulled himself from the water, falling on some hard floor on the other side, coughing and gasping, realizing suddenly the intense pain flaring through his whole body.

For a few seconds, he remained on the floor, his body shaking both from the cold and the shock. His eyes were opened but all he could see was pitch black. He could feel a cold ground against his left cheek. He brushed his right hand on the hard surface before him and felt cracks, some gravels, and dust now glued to his wet skin. He tried to push himself to a sitting position, but the pain pulsing through his head made him feel dizzy and before he knew it, he was falling flat on the dirty floor, his head banging against the water container he had been in a few seconds ago.

He took a few shaky breaths, grinding his teeth against the pain, and tried to move his legs. He thus realized something was wrong. There was something around his left ankle that made a metallic sound as it rattled on the floor. Heath curled on himself and moved his hands along the wet fabric of his pants until his fingers touched a thick metallic ring around his angle. He slightly moved his fingers and found what he had dreaded: the first links of what seemed to be a heavy chain.

"Oh no no no no NO!", he started chanting lowly, trying to push the panic away. He blindly felt his way along the chain to a pipe in a corner. He tried to ignore the pain still flaring in his limbs as he pulled with all his strength, putting his bare feet flat on the pipe to gain leverage. To no avail.

"HELP!", he screamed, his voice frantic, frightened, and a bit hysterical. "SOMEBODY, HELP ME!". He thus let go a scream of rage and fear as panic completely seized him. He started hitting the pipe with his bare heel, trying to break or dislodge it. His breathing was getting short, on the verge of hyperventilating.

He suddenly stilled, certain that he had heard something. A metallic sound coming from a distance, but sounding familiar.

The rattling sound of a chain scraping against the floor.

"Over here…", a raspy voice pierced the complete darkness. Then, after a few seconds: "… Heath, is that you?"

Despite his increasing headache now sending blinding flashes before his eyes as vertigo was taking over him again, Heath felt some kind of odd relief. He was not alone in the darkness. Someone was there, someone who knew him. He focused on those few words, that exhausted voice, and especially that familiar accent.

"… Z… Zack?"

The next moment, Heath's migraine reached its peak. His eyes rolled in the back of his head and his body became completely limp, his head hitting the ground in a bang. Out cold again.

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TO BE CONTINUED

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End file.
